Day 223: Around the world with Improv Wisdom

Books can have a life of their own.   Since the publication of Improv Wisdom in 2005 I have marveled at how this little book gets around. She lives in 256 libraries all the way to Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.  Chapters from the book have been translated into French and Italian, courtesy of the generous blogger, Giorgio Paparelle. These are available online.  Just click the links.

Last year the book was sold to publishers in Germany and Korea and came out in September of 2009.  The covers of those two editions are shown below.

This spring Random House sold the rights to publish the book to a Japanese publisher, Toyo Keizai.  I've been working with the editor and translator of this edition for the past six months to create a new introduction.  This edition is expected to be in bookstores in Japan in February, thanks to the hard work of the translator, Ms. Tomoko Nozu and her editor, Mr. Mizuno.

And, yesterday word came that the rights had been successfully negotiated to a publisher in Taipei, Uni-Books. This came about thanks to the personal efforts of Hsiao-Hsien Wu, a young Taiwanese woman who wants to bring improv to Taiwan.  All of this was possible because of the skillful work of Karin Schulze, Assistant Director Foreign Rights, Crown Publishing Group who negotiated the sale with their rep in Taipei.  Karin is my shero at Random House.  Thank you Karin.

I saw a bumper sticker recently that read:  "If you can read this book, thank an editor."

I am grateful to all of those in the publishing world who have worked to make this book a reality worldwide,  as well as all of those bloggers and friends who have written about Improv Wisdom, keeping this text alive.